Here at the Diary house we had a pretty spectacular weekend, despite the fact that we were down one Daddy for most of it.

Luau spent most of Saturday and all of Sunday up in Vermont running his first Ultramarathon. I have no idea what to say about the fact that my husband ran fifty miles in just over eleven hours yesterday. Yes, fifty miles STRAIGHT – in one day. All I can say is that he did it and so he now has a medal that, as far as I’m concerned, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is certifiable.

Anyway, the girls and I missed him, but we made the best of our time without him. We spent Saturday at an orchard, picking apples and peaches, jumping off hay bales, sloshing through a muddy burlap maze and but for a few glaring exceptions, having ourselves a grand old time.

On Sunday, thanks to my older daughter’s huge heart, we found ourselves at our local firehouse. That story is probably best told by Diary’s Facebook status yesterday morning:

peeled the damn apples. cored the damn apples. made the damn apple pie. had too many damn apples left over. made apple crisp. still had damn apples left over. was cursing said damn apples. katie said, ‘um, mama, maybe we could make another crisp and bring it to the firehouse to thank the firefighters for keeping us safe.’ second apple crisp going into oven now. girls making cards for firefighters. not cursing apples anymore.

My kid never ceases to amaze me. So we went to the firehouse, freshly baked crisp in one hand and some freshly bought vanilla ice cream in the other. I’m sure we can all agree that warm apple crisp without vanilla ice cream is just wrong, no?

The firemen were absolutely wonderful. One of them insisted on bringing the girls out to see the firetrucks. While I was eager to get us out of his hair, he was in no hurry at all and my girls? Well, they were in heaven.

But I’m stopping there, cause I took a million pictures and they tell it all, and well, I mentioned that Luau was away this weekend right? So have we talked about the fact that I am desperately, completely IT challenged? As in I have no idea if I need to upload the pictures or download them and I’m pretty sure that even if I knew what to call it I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea where to begin to actually do it. So, um, once my IT department is back up and running this morning (probably a poor choice of words, sorry, hun) and the pictures are well, loaded, I’ll get back to the story.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share the following. It’s one of my favorite recent stories for a million reasons. It shows how even with limited language or understanding of the relevant social construct, my child finds a way to get what she wants. It shows the patience and power of sister love. It shows the way my girl’s wondrous brain works and how she so often uses it to communicate. And well, a whole lot more. So here goes.

**

When the Drama clan visited this summer, all the girls gathered in Katie’s room and played a good old-fashioned round of Truth or Dare. I’m told that Little Miss ‘kinda played too.’

She apparently got the gist of the game, though it seems that some of the finer details might have been lost in translation. So when she sparked up a game with her sister the other day, it went like this:

“Hey, Katie, turthish or darey?”

“Brooke, you can’t just say ‘truth or dare,’ you have to ask me first if I want to play it with you.”

“Hey, Katie, want to play Truth or Dare?”

“Sure, Brooke.”

“Hey, Katie, truthish or darey?”

“Um, I’ll take truth.”

“OK. I dare you to jump really high.”

“No, Brooke, I picked TRUTH, not dare.”

“OK, Katie. Katie, I truth you to jump really high.”

“Silly. If I pick truth that means that you have to ASK me a question, OK?”

“OK.”

(short pause)

“Hey, Katie, can ya show me how you jump really high?

*

I.

Love.

My.

Kid(s).

See you tomorrow, my friends. I hope today is the beginning of a wonderful week.

Love that Brooke and Katie’s pretty amazing! My boys have had similar conversations, usually about video game. Im just grateful that your Brooke and my JP were given such wonderful and patient siblings. God works in mysterious ways! And YES YES YES… no apple crisp is complete without a couple scoops of vanilla ice cream!

So great. We love your kids (and their amazing parents), too. I always tell my boys’ team at school that part of their challenge is they’re too darn rational for their own good. Sure they can tell you which one is green or which one is a car if you ask them, but I swear they look at you like you’re crazy, because clearly you can see it as well as they can and why should they point it out when you already know the answer, too. Rational. Brooke finding a way to get Katie to do what she wants is darn right clever. And Katie’s big heart – she learns from what she sees. Love it – all of it!